Having fallen victim to an Internet marketing home business scam in the past I’ve learned what to do if you find your self in a similar position. My unfortunate situation occurred via the telephone and a telemarketer who claimed to be associated with a well known and very successful Internet marketer whom I had previously done business with online. The caller claimed that this business person had given them my contact information because he believed this program they were selling would be a perfect fit for me.
This convinced me to listen to their presentation and I even asked my wife to listen in on the call so we could make an informed decision together. Well, needless to say we agreed to purchase their product without checking them out before hand. After the call and after having given them my credit card information I decided to look them up online. When I did I broke out into a cold sweat because all I saw was blog after blog created by former customers and even former employees warning people not to do business with this company.
At this stage I decided to email the successful Internet marketer who I mentioned earlier to see if he had given these people my information. He replied with a simple one sentence email stating: “Do not do business with these people”. He didn’t elaborate because he didn’t have to, I knew from what I had already read on the scam blogs these people were scammers and were only interested in my money which I had stupidly handed over because I naively trusted them.
After a sleepless night I called my bank first thing in the morning and informed them I had been taken advantage of by some unscrupulous people for quite a large sum of money. The lady I spoke with immediately reversed the charge to my account but told me to keep an eye on my transactions for the next few days in case the charge was run through again.
Sure enough, two days later, it was and I called back and once again it was reversed by customer service. The bank also told me they were going to send me dispute forms to fill out and return to them immediately either by fax or snail mail but that it may take 10 days to 2 weeks for me to receive them.
I then called my local branch where my account was located and spoke with the disputed charges representative who informed me I had done everything by the book as far as the bank was concerned and all I could do now was wait for the paper work to arrive in the mail from their disputes center.
She also told me that because the charge was reversed successfully on two different occasions since the incident occurred she didn’t think it would get run through my account again. I mistakenly believed I had dodged a bullet and our money was back safe and sound in our account; Wrong again.
Four days later the bank called me at home and told me the purchase I had made from these people had posted to my account; meaning it had been processed and they now had our money. My only recourse now was to fill out the dispute forms when they arrived and send them back. I was also told I could email the fraud team at the bank with all the details of what had happened so they could get a head start on the investigation.
After completing the paper work for the bank they decided to file a charge back on my behalf which they told me could take up to 45 days to get resolved. This meant they would file a charge back with the offending company requesting the money be refunded to my account however these people would have 45 days to respond to the bank’s request.
If after the 45 day period these people didn’t respond the bank said I would win by default and the money would be refunded to my account automatically. If the company disputed the charge back then I would have to respond to their rebuttal.
I was informed by other business people online who have been in my unfortunate situation that once your bank backs up your disputed charge claim you’re virtually assured of receiving a refund which thankfully is what actually happened in my case.
To summarize, if you find yourself in my situation the first thing you should do is call customer service at your bank. Be sure to keep any and all documentation and receipts received from the offending party including any email correspondence and compile a step by step account of what actually happened and when it occurred.
Also, be sure to stay on top of the situation by contacting your local bank branch as well as customer service on a regular basis and complete the disputed charges documentation and return it immediately preferably via fax and always follow up to make sure customer service received it.
Of course the best way to avoid all of this aggravation and frustration is to thoroughly investigate any company requesting your money in return for a product or service over the phone before making a purchase.